SASKATOONEXPRESS - September 10-16, 2018 - Page 1
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Volume 17, Issue 36, Week of September 10, 2018
lected the Beehive sports cards and eventually sold my collection.” His first broadcasting experience came at CFAR in Flin Flon. He remembers having Bobby Clarke, a returning Flin Flon Bomber from the NHL, among his first colour commentators. “We were on the radio dial at 590, CFQC was at 600. One morning, Jack Sandberg at CFQC heard me doing a sportscast from Flin Flon. He told me to send an audition tape. Jack, Dennis Fisher and Terry Higgins really welcomed me to the station.” In 1974, he received a call from Patty Ginnell, whom he’d met in Flin Flon, and was operating the WHL franchise in Victoria. He asked him to join them as a broadcaster and marketer. And then CFQC called again. He returned as sports director. “I was on a 1981 road trip with the Blades on a West Coast trip when Daryl Lubiniecki asked if I could come and work for him as assistant general manager. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.” There was much excitement when the Blades and Brandon Wheat Kings played the first game in the new Saskatchewan Place on Feb. 9, 1988. “Saskatoon Telecable was going to televise the opener but they didn’t have a play-by-play announcer. Memorable on three counts. We won the game, 4-3. My hunger for the broadcast booth came back. And after drawing a capacity 7,800, we had calls from Vancouver, wondering why the Saskatoon Dennis Beyak has been the voice of the Winnipeg Jets since 2011. (Photo Supplied) opening-night crowd was higher than the Canuck home game attendance on the same he National Hockey Some of the happiest memo- waited two years until I came back. We were night.” League skaters are going ries were in Saskatoon, where married at St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1979,” said The bigger challenge was to become back to work. he started as a broadcaster for Beyak. hosts for the 1989 Memorial Cup finals And that means Dennis Beyak, CFQC Radio-TV in 1972. After Today, they are also partners in Beyak where Beyak was appointed the event chair. a former Saskatoon broadcaster, a spell in Victoria, he returned Sports Inc. and the TSN post in Winnipeg is “The call for volunteers went out and we is returning to his role as one in 1976 to become the station’s the largest of their contracts. were overwhelmed. We did a lot of marketof Canada’s best play-by-play sports director before shifting Beyak was born outside of Winnipegosis ing, especially in trying to protect the faithful announcers and the voice of the jobs to become assistant general in Manitoba 66 years ago. local sponsors from the intrusions of the Winnipeg Jets ever since they manager of the Western Hockey “I would listen to hockey games on the national sponsors. It was a success. We think were warmly welcomed back League’s Saskatoon Blades from radio. We never had television at the begin- we raised the bar with a fully-blown Memointo the NHL in 2011. 1981 until 1992. ning and I’d walk over to the homes of two rial Cup presentation. We started the awards Hockey has been a most “When people ask me where uncles to watch Hockey Night in Canada. banquet with three players from each league important love in Beyak’s sports I came from, I usually say SasI was like a lot of Prairie boys. When my in each category. People life. He has occupied space in a katoon. That’s the place where I brother and I played road hockey, I’d be the “The heartbreak was the way the Blades broadcasting booth or a hockey discovered the broadcasting and goaltender and the play-by-play broadcaster. lost, 4-3, in the overtime final against the team managerial position in eight different hockey connections were going to work for “I loved hockey more than any other Swift Current Broncos. To get so close, and cities. He’s had NHL affiliations since 1995, me. That’s where I met Beverly Frey, who sport. I knew the names of all the players then lose, was disappointing. I’m in the first with the Edmonton Oilers, then the To- was also working at CFQC. We actually met on the NHL’s Original Six teams and knew broadcast booth for the final game and I had TA091022 Tammy ronto Maple Leafs and eventually the Jets. at my first going-away party. Luckily, she the line formations. I kept scrapbooks. I col(Continued on page 5)
Dennis Beyak
Hockey, broadcasting go hand in hand
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